Blog
Posted 5/24/11 by Common Good
LET’S TALK: There’s Too Much Bureaucracy in Removing Bad Teachers
The Associated Press reports on a New York State Senate hearing which revealed that state school districts “aren’t disciplining some bad teachers in the classroom because of a costly and ‘broken’” process. It took one year to remove a New York City teacher convicted of manslaughter. And the issue isn’t unique to New York: A 2008 report from the Center for American Progress found that only between .1 and 1 percent of tenured teachers are dismissed annually nationwide (despite one estimate that “between 5 and 15 percent of tenured teachers are incompetent”).
Start Over argues that we need to free teachers to be able to control their classrooms, and then hold them accountable—but that accountability can’t mean the traditional union approach of endless due process. We want to hear your thoughts on the issue—let’s start a discussion in the comments section below.